MERCY BAY, N.W.T. — A roving camera, Little Bruce, drifted drunkenly over the bow of HMS Investigator on Thursday, recording high-definition video just centimetres from the wreck's anchor chains and upper-deck planking, scratched into rubble by 155 years of passing ice.

The images were a bit shaky because of a faulty joystick but, hey, just a week ago, no one figured they'd even find this historic ship, which sank in eight metres of frigid water in 1855 after three winters locked in ice.

Now a Parks Canada team of marine archaeologists has set out to film every centimetre of this incredibly well-preserved wreck and potentially have the footage ready for Internet downloading next week.

With Mercy Bay cleared of ice floes by a friendly southwest wind Thursday under an unrelenting sun with temperatures in the teens, the team was prepared to work well past what would be nightfall in southern latitudes.

Up here, the sun never gets below five degrees at the horizon, a disorienting 24-hour sunshine reality that allowed me to fish unsuccessfully until 2 a.m. last night — and hopefully gives me a final chance to end the drought before the field unit departs on Friday.

But I digress.

While the team had appeared glum at first by the mechanical setback, Little Bruce's handiwork has far exceeded anyone's expectations.

"It's nice to have a preview viewing so they don't see us when we get all excited," grinned Harris, before he screened the video for Environment Minister Jim Prentice. "OK, here comes the money shot."

Sure enough, as a colleague eased the camera behind the stern ripped open by ice, rudder attachments, copper plating and even grass marks on the hull appeared on the laptop monitor.

With the bulk of the hard work over, the scientific and cultural team working this Banks Island Bay — 1,000 kilometres north of the Arctic Circle — are relaxed and starting to enjoy themselves immensely.

It may have been suggested as a joke, but when Prentice was asked if he wanted to go snorkling in the freezing Arctic water to check out the Investigator for himself, he jumped at it. Sporting a bloated black drysuit, but wearing a kid-in-a-candy-store smile, the MP dropped into the freezing Arctic Ocean to check out the wreck for himself.

"It's like looking into the 19th century, straight down into a museum," said Prentice, as he bobbed beside the Zodiac, despite the leak in his suit.

The next steps in the ship's story are ensuring its continued survival because Mercy Bay, where it rests, is not within Aulavik National Park.

Prentice says he will negotiate an agreement with British authorities on the wreck (it's technically still theirs) and see what they want to do about the three British sailor graves on the site.

Next up will be to pass heritage shipwreck regulations to protect all sunken vessels over 50 years old — with special attention to the Investigator "because of its importance in our history," said Prentice.

The work has just begun for Parks Canada, which vows to send divers to the site next summer and perhaps engage in archaeological excavations of the land site.

"It's far exceeded expectations," says Ifan Thomas, Parks Canada's superintendent of the Western Arctic field unit. "We would have been happy to get up here and do a good survey of the cache area and at least find the ship (rather) than know where it wasn't. Finding the ship, locating the graves and other work has made this phenomenally successful."

Thomas says the cost for the just Aulavik Base Parks Canada unit is sitting at roughly $100,000. "Add in fuel and other transportation costs and the amount could easily double or triple."